Kevin Jones Giddins

Kevin Jones Giddins lives in Orem, Utah and was born in New York City and raised in New Jersey with 10 brothers and sisters. An eclectic man, professionally, he studied the fine arts and has been a professor at Ohio University teaching in the Dance Department and personal brand management in the business school. He is a recognized diversity and inclusion thought leader who develops leaders at Vivint an NRG company and has a leadership consulting firm, Sunlight Works.

Rolling out of bed to pray. I have the habit in the mornings—not only Sunday, but every day—the first thing I do is literally, I don't stand up, I roll out of bed, hit the floor to my knees, and pray. That's the first thing I do. On Sundays, after that—I don't shower yet—I put on a shirt and get ready for a bishopric meeting over Zoom. I then get ready for the day, like shower and stuff. And maybe have some type of a breakfast sometimes. My wife Lita fasts every Sunday morning, so I don’t flaunt a breakfast—usually it's something very quick—and then I have a little devotional with Lita. We pray and then we read an app on our phones that tells us what scripture to read. So we just do that. And then I march to church. 

Sundays for me used to be a day of rest; they’re no longer a day of rest. It's really a day of service. Whether I'm in my calling now in the bishopric or not, I’ve always been focused on a calling, and I'm in church usually two thirds of the day. And I say that because I'm either preparing for something or cleaning up after something. Being in the bishopric for me means I have meetings beforehand, meetings during, and meetings after church services, so I don't get home until 3 or 4 o'clock.  

Family time. Then I can give my day back to my family. When I come home after church, Lita and I do Come, Follow Me together—Lita’s influence. We're very faithful at sharing what each of us has studied in Come Follow Me, not because of me, because of Lita’s faithfulness. We will watch The Chosen or some BYU station programming on the TV and then get ready for dinner. Either we’ve made dinner the day before, one or two of our adult kids bring food over, or Lita has made it after church.  We then have dinner and the rest of our “big little people” come over. That’s what Lita calls them. Right now in our house, we are a revolving door. We have never been by ourselves as a couple.  We've always had a child or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 in our life. When we got married, we had a honeymoon baby, so literally, we have had children in our lives forever. We are looking forward to the days of just being Lita and I. What will that be like? But no one told us there's something called Adult Parenting. 

Sunday is the day that we have either family counsel, or one on one with the five kids. But we now have a child that moved back home. Remember I said revolving door. They take turns. When one moves out, another one seems to say, “Oh, there's a free basement,” and they come back in. So we have now a daughter living at home with us. But our family is so close that they are at our house during the week. They come get lunch, raid the food pantry, borrow my tools, “borrow” Lita’s clothes, use the family computer and printer. I guess their high-tech laptops are never working because our kids are always coming over for something, which is interesting because they all could not wait to leave the nest. And Sunday's the day when everyone usually comes over together, and I love it! We have dinner together with three to five kids around the table.

Gospel music. The first thing we're doing as we’re helping mom finish the dinner preparations is singing to gospel music. Gospel music is very big in our house, to the point that we've had neighbors come to our house and question, “Is this reverent?” They've literally have said to us, “We didn’t consider this music to be reverent. I can’t believe you guys are blaring this music.” So we've had to educate our neighbors that we do things a little differently. Thank you very much for your concern, but we're okay. We still love the Lord, believe in his church, and we listen to gospel music, and we blare it loud. We are singing it loud and we're dancing in the kitchen to it.

According to our neighbors, our gospel music seems not approved. We've actually had one neighbor come—back in the day when we had home teachers—and while they were here, the music was playing, and one said, “You know what, this is weird because I feel the Spirit on that song, that gospel song touched me, and I don't know why. I feel awkward that I feel the spirit.” We were dumbfounded at his expression that he felt something, that he’s surprised that he feels the spirit on a gospel song. And so literally, that is a big part of my Sunday: gospel music and moving to it around the house.  It really is. Sunday is a celebration.  

So we're eating around the table. We have council, we talk about everything, from Church policies,  to relationships, God and country, to politics, to racism, social justice, education, goals, dreams—these are a few of my favorite things. We have family discussions about fashion, and trends, to the prophets’ words. Sometimes it gets heated. Sometimes we're all on the same page, and we have taught our children to think for themselves. So some are aligned in thinking and some are not. And it's great to have an engaging family discussion. 

Games and movies. And then we play games. We play games (did I say we play games?) and always a family staple: we watch a movie. We are such a movie family, we cannot get together without watching a movie and spending 30 minutes after the movie talking about the movie, the acting, the arcs in performance, the themes and backstories, the actor’s family and favorite color. So games are before a movie or after—but movies are a Sunday feature. Without fail, every Sunday, we're watching a movie. When our kids moved out of the house, I decided that every time they move out, I turn their room into something else—either a storage room or a craft room, I just let them know, “We love you, but your room is no longer your room. It really never was because this is your mom’s and my house, your home, but my house and that room is now something else.” Well, my daughter's room I turned into a movie room. So we have a large projector, screen,  a large couch, and I put in there movie-style chairs. “Kid, I love you, and that room is now a movie room.” And so we're watching, whether it's Disney movies or artistic movies, we are watching movies every Sunday. Every Sunday, did I say every Sunday?

The movies and the TV shows we watch have to be inspirational, according to Mom-Lita. We can't watch anything that's not inspirational. So everything we're watching is “Sunday approved.” Lita has also purchased what's called TV Guardian. So whatever shows are on, we click on TV Guardian, and all language and unwanted stuff is filtered out. During the week, we listen to anything  and watch what most people watch. But on Sunday, it's all “Sunday approved.” I say that because what makes it different is we're not watching just anything. There are times that we record the Tonys or Oscars and don't watch them on Sunday. I may wait until late Sunday night to see the highlights—just to make sure all is well when Lita watches it the next day.

Father’s Day. On Father’s Day, I get to pick the meal for the family dinner. And it's whatever meal I want. Each year is different. Like sometimes I'm going to have breakfast foods for the meal. I also love Italian, so sometimes Italian. A lot of times Italian. And I love apple pie or an apple dish. We have to make some type of apple dish—like apple cobbler or apple pie. That is just a standard. I grew up loving that. And then Father’s Day gifts are always a part of it. We decorate the house on special occasions. In the Giddins house, because of Lita’s influence, we celebrate everything. We celebrate Groundhog Day, first day of spring, and we decorate the house on those occasions. So on Father's Day, that's the one time I’m excused from decorating; the kids decorate. The kitchen is decorated with Happy Father's Day banners and streamers or whatever that theme is. All of our holidays have a theme. I love cars. So it could be a car theme. Or it could be about ties, but there's some type of decoration theme. And the dining room table is decorated with gifts. I have five kids plus Lita, so at least six different gifts on the table. I don't open them until after we have eaten and gifts are sitting on the table as we eat. We open gifts, play games. And on Father's Day, I get to pick out the movie

Ministering. The only thing that I didn't say is some Sundays before or after dinner, I go out ministering to families in my home area. I have three families, and I am dedicated to visiting families at least once a month, that’s three times. I mean, oftentimes it’s on three different Sundays I'm visiting someone. Remember I said, Sunday is not a day of rest for me, it’s a day of service. And I'm old school, I still go and visit in person. And I'm that weird guy that takes bread or takes baked goods to the families I serve. That’s the part of my Sundays that I feel the happiest about: visiting families. I often come home teary-eyed and filled with the Spirit.  When I have a chance to serve, that's when I feel the best. Sometimes I'll sit in my car before I come in the house, just thanking Father for that experience that I just had in that house with that family, because I have families that have, you know, some of them have challenges. But that is probably the favorite part of my day: visiting the families in my neighborhood. 

We live in one of the most active areas in all the Church. We have probably 98% activity in our ward. And we probably have in our whole neighborhood maybe two families who are not LDS. And we probably only have two families that are not fully engaged in our ward, we have former mission presidents, bishops, stake presidents and general officers: it is just a very strong ward. 

Okay, after the movie we then do personal things, like people will get into groups, like either me and one daughter will get into the corner and we'll talk, or continue a card game, or we just break off into little groups and do things. And when people leave, then Lita and I, without fail, we’ll have another devotional, a little devotional prayer and a few scriptures to close out the day. And then we sit and watch late night TV until literally 12:30 or 1 o'clock in the morning. Then we fall asleep.